9. Why does the Chief Elder apologize to the audience at the Ceremony of Twelve?

10. How does the community react to the death of a child in the river?

11. Where did the Giver get his wisdom?

12. What instructions were written on Jonas' Assignment Sheet?

13. What method does the Giver use to train Jonas?

14. What are 'Stirrings'?

15. What is the first memory Jonas receives?

16. Why is Lily skeptical of Jonas' story about the elephants?

17. What is the name of the failed Receiver who was chosen 10 years ago?

18. Why is Jonas not permitted to apply for release?

19. How does Jonas help the newchild Gabriel go to sleep?

20. Why do Jonas' parents refuse to tell him that they love him?

21.Why does Jonas interrupt his friends' game of good guys and bad guys?

22. Why does the Nurturing Center release one of every set of identical twins?

23. Why does Jonas leave the community before the time he and the Giver had planned?

24. How does Jonas keep the search planes from finding him and Gabriel?

25. What does Jonas see (or think he sees) as he nears the bottom of the hill on the sled?

If you were to write an end to the novel, what would happen? Here is what the author, Lois Lowry, said about the book's ending:

"Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don't do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated sense of beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds.

"I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think that the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending."

WHAT DO YOU IMAGINE IS THE REST OF THE STORY FOR JONAS AND GABRIEL?

OK. Now here are some questions from Cathy, (aka your teacher, Dr. Shafer):

1. What is the significance of the color RED?

2. Why do the Receiver of Memory, Jonas, Gabriel, and Rosemary all have pale eyes when all the other people have dark eyes?

3. What is the symbolism (if any) of the bicycles?

4. Do you believe that Jonas' father had a conscience? Do you think that anyone in this society had a conscience? Is it possible to have a conscience without opposites, memories, pain, fear, etc?

5. What are your own personal thoughts about euthanasia?

6. What do you think Lois Lowry was trying to express to her readers with the description of Jonas bathing Larissa, the woman at the House of the Old?

7. Do you also believe that 'love' is an imprecise concept? If so, how can you express the same deep feeling with more precise language?

8. Why would it be desirable to repress sexuality in an Utopian society such as the one described by Lowry?

9. The Giver has been a frequently banned book since its publication, because some critics thought that Lowry was saying that the Utopian (dystopian) society described is one that she condones. Do you agree, that Lowry was setting up Jonas' society as exemplary? Or do you feel that she was saying exactly the opposite?